Black and grey compass rose tattoo with a blue centre and script compass letters, sitting on the upper back of a person wearing a grey top.

Compass rose on upper back

Traditional · Back · Mixed · Photo

A detailed compass rose sits centrally on the upper back, with a ringed outline, eight-pointed star and ornate petal-shaped points. The shading is mostly black and grey with fine hatching, while the centre is filled with a blue eye-like motif. Script letters mark the four directions and a small line of Roman-style numerals sits below the centre, on smooth skin with a faint pink tint around the design.

Traditional Geometric Back Compass Compass rose Star Eye Letter Numeral Circle

Find an artist for this

Take it to an artist as a reference. A good artist will make it yours rather than copy someone else's tattoo.

A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

Dear Tomas, the brass case came back from the menders in Zagora with the needle still wandering north-west, which the man swore was the fault of the sun and not the glass. I have set it on the sill where you used to leave your boots. The blue eye in the centre is the bead your grandfather bought from a trader for two dates and a bad knife, and he never once admitted he had been cheated.

Keep reading

The road south of Zagora has no milestones past the second year, so the drivers still steer by the star chart pinned above the café counter. Your grandfather drew it from memory after the storm of 1961, eight points and the little petalled sails he insisted were there to catch the wind, and he wrote the numerals beneath so the surveyors would know which year the desert had moved them.

Yesterday a lorry from Agadir stopped at the gate, and a young woman climbed down asking for the man who made maps. I told her he was dead. She unfolded a sketch of the same compass on a scrap of paper and asked whether the blue eye was a true bearing or only ornament. I said it was true, because he would have wanted that answer. Then I went inside and gave her the spare bead from the tin.

Come home before the rains and bring the lamp. The needle is pointing at the door, which I suppose means nothing, but I have decided to believe it. Your mother.